Automated Processing of Structured Online Documents

We present FAQ Minder, an implemented prototype of the system that parses FAQs, files of Frequently Asked Questions associated with USENET newsgroups. The system identifies and tags, in an interactive manner, the logical components of FAQs: network headers, tables of contents, sections, glossaries, questions, answers, and bibliographies. Such parsing of FAQs is part of FAQ Finder, a question-answering system that uses FAQs as its knowledge base. 1 Introduction When the manager of a mutual fund sits down to write an update of the fund's prospectus, he does not start his job from scratch. He knows what the fund's shareholders expect to see in the document and arranges the information accordingly. An inventor, ready to register his idea with the Patent and Trademark Office of the U.S. Department of Commerce, writes it up in accordance with the rules specifying the format of patent submissions. A researcher who wants to submit a paper to a scientific conference must be aware of the format..